It’s been almost two months since I had the interviews and last month I met with the grade level team teachers at the schools that the principals had invited me to. My fears and nerves almost overcame me again as I looked at the school profiles online. There was very little, if any, diversity in teachers at the schools, and I couldn’t detect a Muslim face or name. Would these teachers like me? Would I get any “looks” or raised... Read more

Part I Part II Third, as wives of Islamic workers and students, women who understand the significance of Islamic knowledge and work, are able to make personal sacrifices on its path, and also be truly supportive to their husbands, and their children’s role in it. How many husbands who are students of knowledge or busy in dawa cannot communicate their struggles and discuss their experiences and learnings with their wives because their wives simply don’t have even the Islamic vocabulary... Read more

My mother watches my son while I’m at work. Last week, when I picked him up, she handed me a small gift bag. “What’s this?” I asked. There was no special occasion, and so if it was something she had bought for me while shopping, it didn’t need to be in a gift bag with tissue paper. “Just a simple gift,” she replied. I kissed her goodbye, thanked her, and was on my way. In the rush and commotion of putting my... Read more

Not a linguist myself, I come from a family of linguists. Perhaps that is why I appreciate the power of language not only in conveying information but in shaping one’s mind. Like all multi-lingual children, I grew up realizing that certain words in one of my languages did not have a translation or equivalent in another one. This conveyed to me not just a deficiency in vocabulary, but a void of ideas. That the Urdu word “nazar” has no English... Read more

Of all the women mentioned in the Quran, only Mariam (as) was mentioned by name, repeatedly, and even a surah was named after her. She, who Allah chose above all the women in the world (Al-Imran:42) and in Paradise (Saheeh Hadith from Hakim’s Al-Mustadrak), she, whose fame rose above all other women in history, honored for her virtue, she who faced her tests with courage and conviction, is Islam’s ideal of womanhood. Indeed it is necessary for both women and... Read more

Read this sad story of an inheritance predicament and learn a lesson. When my husband’s father died more than thirty years ago, the inheritance was divided among his wife and three sons. (There are no daughters) My husband’s mother died a few years after that, and her inheritance was divided among the three sons. I say “divided,” but the inheritances were not actually physically divided; rather they were divided on a paper that the sons wrote themselves. It was something... Read more

My commute is not very pleasant. I’m always stuck in traffic, no matter what route I take or how early or late I leave. I usually stick to the straight, one-way path. From point A to point B. It usually takes me an hour, sometimes less. But then there’s the point A to C, D, E, F to get to point B, and although it’s a longer, sort of odd, path to take, I can avoid traffic and sometimes get... Read more

Part I Part II Part III I continue my travels, this time to a Montessori school. The Montessori school is picture perfect to me. I look through the observation windows into the classrooms only to see primly dressed, neat, and clean children learning their little hearts and minds out. Oh, what glory! Here’s one boy placing cubes in descending order by size, there’s another, picking pom poms up by a little scooper, and there, over there, a girl reading a... Read more

The school district I teach in does a “transfair” towards the end of each school year, giving current employees the opportunity to interview for other schools they are interested in transferring to. This year, due to moving and ending up with a long commute, I decided to attend the transfair in hopes that I would get a teaching job at a school closer to home. Although in the same county and school district, the school I currently teach at and... Read more